1 Film Marketing : Results and Consequences of an Inflationary Trend Hélène Laurichesse Professeur Associé Université Toulouse 2 Le Mirail École Supérieure d’Audiovisuel La boratoire de Recherche en Audiovisuel 5, Allées Antonio Machado 31 058 Toulouse Cedex tél : 05 61 50 44 46 Fax : 05 61 50 49 34 e-mail : [email protected] Stéphane Magne Maître de Conférences Université des Sciences Sociales — Toulouse 1 Institut d’Administration des Entreprises de Toulouse Centre de Recherche en Gestion Place Anatole France 31042 Toulouse tél. 05 61 63 56 00 fax. 05 61 63 56 56 e-mail professionnel: [email protected] e-mail personnel : [email protected] 2 arketing applied to the movie industry has often been diabolised for ideological reasons. Nowadays, we observe an excessive inflation of its utilization. In a period Mof increase of movie release combined with a reduction of the period of their life time in theatre, there is an inflation of copies, production budgets and release costs. This situation is problematic for the distributors’financial health who are in charge of the marketing. It increases the difference between small and big distributing companies. But this higher bid of marketing doesn’t go along with a rigorous application of its techniques. Even if the homemade is moving toward a more professional use of marketing applied to the movies, the uses are more based on intuition than science1. Strategic choices (such as segmentation and positioning) are still part of this logic. For instance, the use of screen tests aimed to determine a public is restrictive. Moreover, not knowing the impact of marketing investments is a handicap to a better use of these expenses. This is particularly what we want to analyze in the present document. We want to study the effects of some of these expenses on performance indicators such as box office or gross. The first part of this study will lead us to a presentation of the movie marketing concepts and presents the issue of the actual evolution. We will particularly study why marketing plays such a part in film industry today. The second part will present a statistical study on nearly 700 French movies: its goals, methods, results and prospects. 1. WHAT KIND OF MARKETING FOR THE FILM INDUSTRY ? There are as many definitions of movie marketing as prospects of application in this domain. However, the studies exploring this area tend to indicate that he is only a film marketing. So, it seams important to situate the context of our study in the following figure. Figure 1 : Market Levels in the Cinema Business Marketing Cinema Film Marketing Marketing Cinema Cinema as a Spectateurs : Professionals : Theatres : leisure activity : Cultural Relational Marketing of Cultural Marketing Marketing Marketing services The marketing applied to the cinema can be divided into two main orientations with several sub-dimensions. The movie theatres and entertainment levels corresponds to the global dimension of the cinema market (cinema marketing). The public and professionals (distributors, exhibitors, televisions, video distributors) levels is more concerned with the supply dimension for each film (film marketing). 1 LAURICHESSE H., Marketing cinématographique et Attitudes des spectateurs envers la promotion des films à la télévision, Doctorat en Sciences de l’Information et de la Communication, Université de Toulouse Le Mirail, Samedi 12 Décembre l998. 3 This distinction enables us to specify one fundamental difference in the expectations in terms of marketing, notably contrasting « supply marketing2 » with « demand marketing». Supply marketing (a concept born from the studies in cultural marketing), fits into the scheme of a mediation between supply and demand in order to enable a film to meet its audience. It is thus a way to support the artist in his will to meet the audience trying to identify his public of an already elaborate film. Marketing of movie theatres can conversely be directly inspired by marketing of services since it is really the film/theatre duo that makes possible a meeting between the artist’s work and the audience. Once you have distinguish the basic supply (the film, the screen, the seats) from the peripheral supply (all the other services), the adaptation of the supply to the demand will have an effect on the peripheral supply. The peripheral supply can be divided into integrated supply (sell with the ticket) and modular supply (optional services). The role of the marketing is then to create the value. M ore precisely, film marketing as supply marketing is to fit into the scheme of communication through the launch campaign. People are encouraged to see the film in theatres. National and international television and editor video are encouraged to buy the film, and all the press to talk about it. As we cannot take into account the following variables: products, prices, distribution, the communication variable becomes central, not to say unique. Then, there are some nuances with practices such as concept test, casting test or previews destined to link the film industry supply with the audience expectations. But, in fact, theses practices, first, are not systematic, and second are supposed to enable the creation of a media plan (on serious bases on the identification of a target audience). In France, the protection of authors’ rights requires the director’s permission for possible changes of work. When the film maker accepts these conditions, he wants to put into light the problems of comprehension in his film, or inadequate reactions (for example, laughters at the wrong moment). Without trying to deny or minimize these practices, one can admit that the product/supply variable is not really an active variable as element of the mix. The other specificity of film marketing refers to its unique nature : film marketing is a launching marketing3. Each new film being a new, and short, adventure, and can be regarded as a new product. Audience satisfaction will not necessarily lead to a renewed attendance (it rarely happens) and the audience loyality may be caused by the presence of an actor or director, or film genre. There are many criteria, not easily usable, for a campaign, probably because of the mode of influence is linked to individual personalities and behaviour. The marketing of cinema as a leisure activity is also part of this prospect of supply marketing with a method based on the audience knowledge, the communication and the prices. The knowledge of the audience has been analysed trough annual studies and surveys led by The Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC). To stimulate the attendance of movie theatres, the State or a group of professionals (producers, distributors, exhibitors) starts a national advertising campaign for the public, or organizes special days with reduced fares : Printemps du Cinéma (Springtime Cinema Festival), la Fête du Cinéma (Cinema Day), Cinestival .. 2 HIRSCHMAN E. C. , Aesthetics, Ideologies and the Limits of Marketing Concept, Journal of Marketing, 47, Summer, pp 45-55, 1983 HIRSCHMAN E. C. et HOLBROOK Morris B, Hedonic Consumption, Emerging Concepts, Methods and Propositions, Journal of Marketing, 42, Summer, pp 92-101,1982 HOLBROOK M. B., Some Preliminary Research in Consumer Esthetics, Advances in Consumer Research, pp 104-108,1 980 HOLBROOK M. B. et Hirschman E. C., The Experiental Aspects of Consumption : Consumer Fantasies, Feelings and Fun, Journal of Consumer Research, 9, Septembre, pp 132-140, 1982 KELLY R. F., Culture as commodity : the marketing of cultural objets and cultural experiences, Advances in consumer research, Vol. IV, The University of British Columbia, 1987 COLBERT F., Le marketing des arts et de la culture, Editions Gaëtan Morin, Québec, Canada, 1993 EVRARD Y., Le management des activités artistiques et culturelles, Economica, 1993 DURAND J-P, Le marketing des activités et des entreprises culturelles, Juris Services, 1991 3 FINN A. et alii , Le développement de nouveaux produits dans les industries culturelles, Recherche et Applications en Marketing, 10, 4, pp 47-63, 1995 4 Film marketing destined to professionals is relational marketing4. It starts right as the beginning of the project through the search for money, led by producers notably, with the competition of other projects on the market at the same moment. How to « sell » the film is the responsibility of the author, then the producer and distributor. In fact, if this marketing method is seldom seen like this, it is part of one of the heavy trends of the evolution of marketing, notably for services and cultural activities 5.. The marketing of movie theatres6, conversely relies on a classic method with an analysis of the internal situation (assets and handicap) and environmental (competition), traditional strategy in terms of segmentation and positioning and mixed-marketing composed of four main variables: products/services, prices, staff, communication. Among these different levels of application, our study deals with the level of film marketing destined to the audience. We will thus envisage its various components through its evolution in order to question the consequences of the current trend. 2. THE INCREASING ROLE OF MARKETING IN FILM DISTRIBUTION The development of marketing in film industry has several, interdependent reasons. The increase of movies distributed in France, with the increasing number of film copy, lead to the theatre saturation that even the development of multiplexes is not enough to balance. This situation is also stressed by a bad distribution of the film releases throughout the year. Thus, the duration of a film exploitation in theatres are more and more reduced with a system of depreciation during the first days of a film release. This system has one main goal : leading the audience to see the film in the days after the film opening. The advertisement around the film then starts to be intensified with higher marketing investments. Let us analyse the number of film releases of this evolution on each of the components.